Emirates Islamic Bank expects to resume "aggressive" lending and expansion this year, hoping to shrug off the effects of a loss-making first quarter as well as recent regulations on banks.
The Sharia-compliant lender expects to open five branches throughout the Emirates this year, said Faisal Aqil, the bank's deputy chief executive.
"This year, we've hired around 80 new staff, 60 of which were UAE nationals," he said.
"The plan is to add another 90 [staff]."
The new recruits will be hired "across the UAE" for the retail and small business lending divisions. The increased hiring comes as a number of banks reduce staff numbers in the UAE.
In spite of the Emirates Islamic Bank's expansion plans, a proposed tie with the UAE's Roads and Transport Authority has been delayed until at least next month, Mr Aqil added.
The plan would have allowed customers in Dubai to use a debit or credit card in place of their existing Metro cards.
The card, linked to a bank account with Emirates Islamic Bank or Emirates NBD, would have been automatically topped up and could have been used for payments for Metro, water taxis and parking tickets.
The launch of the so-called combi-card was initially scheduled for April.
The expansion drive comes after a change of management at Emirates Islamic Bank last month with Abdullah Showaiter taking over from the former chief executive Ebrahim Fayez al Shamsi. The bank, which is owned by Emirates NBD, hopes to turn around a loss of Dh20 million (US$5.4m) in the first quarter of this year, largely a result of provisions on bad debts totalling Dh108.5m.
The bank's new strategy aims to pare down lending to the troubled property sector and concentrate instead on sectors including oil and gas, tourism, retail andmanufacturing, Mr Aqil said.
"We've started lending and being aggressive again, and focusing on areas that we believe have good potential for growth," he said. New regulation by the Central Bank has limited the growth prospects for retail lending, but lending to small and medium-sized businesses looked attractive, said Mr Aqil.
However, the Central Bank has also stipulated that banks lower their corporate lending rates to help to bolster the domestic economy, creating another potential threat to bank margins.
ghunter@thenational.ae
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
SHAITTAN
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